Suejin Chung

executed in 2008, framed

Gallery Skape, Seoul
Private Collection, Asia

France, Paris, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, METAMORPHOSES Korean Trajectories, 2008
USA, New York, Arario Gallery, Suejin Chung solo exhibition, 2009
Korea, Seoul, Doosan Gallery, See through Our Eyes, 2010
Korea, Seoul, PKM Gallery, Painters, 2011

Landscapes of Contemporary Creation, published by Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, France, Paris,  2009
Korean Eye: Contemporary Korean Art, published by Skira, Italy, 2010
Suejin Chung - Artworks, Gallery Skape, Korea, Seoul

This work is generally in good condition. There are minor wear and handling marks around the edges. Please note that it was not examined under ultraviolet light.
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Korean artist Suejin Chung has always been interested in the parallel between the human mind and painting. Thus, her works, often convoluted in their compositions, can be seen as metaphors of the complexity of one’s consciousness. Her rendering of bizarre environments filled with an assembly of human heads, Korean soft drinks, organs, and other seemingly miscellaneous objects, have received growing recognition from audiences within Korea and abroad. Born in 1969, the artist has been shown at the Peres Project in Berlin, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Paris, as well as featured in a solo exhibition at the Arario Gallery in New York, representing the new face of Korean contemporary art on the international front. Her bi-cultural education background marked by a B.F.A. degree from Hongik University in Seoul and M.F.A degree from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has in a way contributed to the otherworldly dimension of her works, independently marking its own territory within the local art world.

Such a dimension is easily found in Garden from 2008, a work that fully exemplifies the breadth and range of the artist’s imaginative creative input. To look on the surface, it is difficult to pin down a direct flow within the composition, yet there also seems to be a systematic concern for the placement of objects. On top of a mustard yellow background, woman heads donning various hats are lined up on the central right side, while flower bulbs are aligned on the bottom row against a dark green backdrop. A trace of architectural elements can also be found with wooden beams, tables, and blocks spread out across the surface. Aside from these, paper planes, organs, ice cubes, lines and colours are scattered in between. The paradox between chaos and order is further expressed through the different perspectives coexisting on a single canvas plane, disorienting any chance of a clear reading. This can certainly refer back to the human consciousness as stated in the beginning, about which the artist explained, “you do not need to ask what [a] painting means anymore.”¹

1 “Arario Gallery New York Presents Suejin Chung”, Arario Gallery, 2009